Link Exchange: Making Friends on the Web

For one to become popular, he needs to make friends. The more friends you have, the better the reputation can have. The same holds true for web pages. In order to assure a good traffic, they need to be popular as well. And what better way to acquire fame than to have several connections?

Link exchange was conceived and practiced ever since the web came into existence. However, it wasn’t until after the year 2000 that it started to become as popular as it is right now. Search engine giant Google saw the importance of sites that contained more links. When Google saw how accurate this system is in evaluating a page’s ranking, it made Google achieve popularity as well.

There are some experts that do not believe in the significance of link exchange. They claim that the reliability of web pages is based on the site’s one way link. That is why most analysts recommend the incoming link to be highly significant to the web page that it is linked to.

Link exchanges between unrelated web pages are oftentimes the cause of unreliable ranking of these pages in the SERP or Search Engine Result Pages. Websites belonging to the same industry can help each other by exchanging links. Competitors may not want to have link exchanges with one another, but they may want to do link exchange with those who will be able to complement each of their websites.

There are link exchange directories that webmasters visit. These directories contain other webmasters who are also in search of trade links. Some link exchange directories will require you to pay to obtain access to their database. Others though, provide you with the directory listings for free.

Link exchange is another clever marketing strategy online. However, while it can be very helpful, it can also be detrimental. Hence, trading links should be done carefully. Exchanging links with the wrong site can bring the most damaging effects on your business. The best thing a webmaster can do is to keep a firm method of linking. This means that you neither accept link proposals from unrelated websites, nor post links on one.

There are hundreds of thousands of trading link sites in the internet. Choosing those that are similar to your own can be a big challenge. However, finding a few ones and linking with them is way better than exchanging links with a lot of irrelevant sites. In simpler words, your website is better off having five useful links than a hundred useless ones.

Generally, people do not want to be directed to worthless pages. Since the internet is one huge source of information, giving people the run-around can be very frustrating. Exchanging link is not only a popularity campaign but a marketing scheme. And part of a good marketing scheme is being true to your customers.